This month, our topic will be Making Connections: Questioning our Racial Roots where we will connect to others within and across racial lines in order to develop and deepen relationships. We will meet for reflection and dialogue through Coming to the Table style shares. Here is an excerpt from some of the material that we will share about: “Although the categories of race, sexuality, and gender don’t grow up out of the dirt like trees, those of us who carry these identities do come from the earth and we share a system of “roots” between us. Identities are the names given to the physical forms of our inherited nature. Just as plants are identified, categorized, and named according to the physical forms they inherit, so too are human forms. This naming and labeling, however, is not the affliction of our times. What we assign to those names is what causes affliction.” (Manuel, The Way of Tenderness, p. 103)